Contents

Bishop leads a team of newbies to a Quiet World, where technology advanced, but human then mysteriously disappeared. Currently, scientists and prospectors scavenge technology for profit. the team is hired to enter a large dome full of advanced robots and bring back what they can.

Upon arrival at the dome, the team discovers that the entrance is guarded by an eight foot laser on tank treads. While debating methods, Timmy uses space magic to obliterate the robot, leaving behind teardrop shaped stones with square spiral designs across their surface, later dubbed "Timmy's Tears." Timmy himself then succumbs to his magic and his body is taken by an unknown entity, glowing and powerful. it leaves the team alone and departs. Several Tears are collected by the team.

Inside, the team discovers that the miles wide dome is crammed with buildings o various styles, and a snow-like ash floats through the air, forming a hurricane near the central building, with the strength of the wind lessening toward the edges. As they progress inward, after an initial harmless encounter with a large spider-like robot (builderbots), they are attacked by a very large robot (demolishers turned warbots) which is destroying buildings as it goes. A shiny, humanoid robot (hunterbot) then arrive and does combat with the big robot, but not before the big one kills Havel.

An incoming artilliary shell wounds several of the team, and Bishop slices up a harmless, somewhat broken robot. this brings the wrath of one of the hunterbots. Meanwhile Pancaek uses a Timmy's Tear to heal himself perfectly. Bishop leads the hunter into a trap, which gets Denzel killed, but succeeds in bringing down the hunter. leon, meanwhile, uses a Tear to give himself a stone leg, and hikes back to the entrance to collect additional tears. He then turns himself into living stone with another Tear.

A second building sized warbot appears, knocking Karen through the air and firing on the group. Karen gets several broken bones. No one else dies, and an electric weapon fired from the central building destroys the warbot.

Most of the group head in, leaving wounded (but patched) Karen outside. The first hunterbot passeds the group but leave them be. The team then build two faraday cages out of wire found all across the buildins nearby, and use these as shelter from the hurricane's electrical discharges, passing a creature made partly of flesh and partly of machinery, which seems to channel the electricity through a lightning rod on it's back. They it through the worst of the storm into a tunnel whose walls and ceiling are lined with builder bots and warbots. A dozen more of the cyborgs are around as well, but the team is left to move on in safety. they arrive in the central building and take a reight elevator upward.

on the first floor up, they encounter lots of computers surrounded by catwalks and cables. On the second floor is a similar set, though with some much larger computers. Both floors contain text files, video feed from robots and stationary cameras throughout the dome, and schematic programs. the text i in foreign symbols.

The third floor contains three computer banks, and three sapient AIs calling themselves the subcontrollers o the research facility that is the dome. they send one volunteer (miyamoto) to the fourth floor, where he talks to the main AI - an AI designed to mimic the personality of the former research head, whose mummified body sits in a throne in the center of the room. The AI willingly grants the team a databot containing the data they requested, and an escort of cyborgs (called servitors) to leave the facility.

Leon is not content to wait, and instead tears o a computer panel in the third floor, bringing the wrath of an evolved hunter on himself. The rest of the team duck and cover, feeling that he brought this on himself and endangered the team needlessly. He fights for a while, but is ultimately torn in pieces. he feigns death and the robot leaves him be.

the team head out with the databot and the escort, forgetting Karen. Bishop flies back or her and has to outrun the first hunterbot to the exit, while the rest of the team enjoy a safe and uneventful trip back. Leon uses another Tear, and turns himself into a stone head on six stone spiderlike legs. he uses a fourth, making his stone body whole, but drawing Timmy back to him. Timmy pulls the light out of Leon, turning him into ash in the process. the team then heads back, with Steve alerting some that they would be leaving immediately on another mission.

Denzel Gaunt: Thoroughly burned/electrocuted by a hunter-bot that was chasing Bishop and that Bishop summoned, after being ordered by Bishop to shoot it.

Leon Tyler: Turned his leg to living stone with a Timmy's Tear artifact. Then turned his entire body to living stone with another Timmy's Tear artifact. Proceeded to piss off an intelligent research facility and got his new stone body smashed into pieces. Regrew a spider-body with a third Timmy's Tear artifact. Didn't know when to stop.